Wikimania 2021/Scholarships/Wikimedia Ghana User Group/Report

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

We believe we largely met our goal which was to give data scholarships and other needs of volunteers from our user group who wanted to be a part of Wikimania 2021 which was held virtually. This wasn't the first time we were distributing data scholarships, during the thick of the Covid=19 pandemic we had to institute a data scholarship programme for members of our user group. With this experience, it was easy to navigate this Wikimania 2021 Scholarships since we had the track record and knew how to go about it.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets. Please be sure to review and provide metrics required for Rapid Grants.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
10-50 participants will receive data packages to support their participation at Wikimania	25 participants were able to receive data scholarships	For the 25 participants that received the data scholarships, there were various categories of the amount they received depending on the number of days they selected to participate in Wikimania. 19 persons received data scholarships for 5 days, 1 person received data scholarship for 4 days, 2 persons received data scholarships for 3 days, 3 people received the data scholarship for 2 days and then 1 person received the data scholarship for a day. Even though we budgeted for 50 people getting half the number was great for us. This afforded us an opportunity to actively support all the volunteers who asked for the scholarship. Also, 2 participants received hardware support from us to purchase equipment for their Wikimania.
1 post-Wikimania meetups will be funded	We were able to host a 1 post-Wikimania	Due to the Covid-19 outbreak we had to postpone the post-Wikimania meetup to such a time when it was safe to host it. In the end, we had 7 people join us for the post-event meetup we organized in Accra, Ghana. It was a great time where we watch some of the video presentations from Wikimania and we had to discuss them thoroughly as a group.

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

What worked well?

Due to the already established structure, we had with regards to already giving out data scholarships identifying people who needed the scholarship and paying them was very seamless. Also, the majority of the scholarship recipient mentioned that the scholarship they received served its purpose for them. The whole process we put in place made it so seamless and the feedback we got from scholarship recipients was also great.

What did not work so well?

The platform that was used for Wikimania we got a lot of feedback from scholarship recipients that they found it hard navigating the platform. Also, a lot complain about the time difference for Wikimania since most of them were workers they found it challenging. Newbie orientation didn't really go well and so the majority of the newbies didn't understand fully some of the discussions that were being had at Wikimania. Due to Covid-19, it was difficult to get a lot of our members available for the Post-Wikimania Meetup and we had to postpone it for such a time that it was safe to have it.

What would you do differently next time?

We would orient all the newbies about Wikimania and what is to be discussed there since the majority of them would not get the context before attending. We would make sure the application process is open early enough to allow more of our members to apply on time.

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

Was spent on data scholarships and hardware support = GHC 4,510
Was spent on Post-Wikimania meetup & merchandise = GHC 2,038.36
Total Spent = GHC 6,548.36

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

Remaining funds = GHC 4,865.49

Also we would want to use the remaining funds for hardware support for some of our members who apply for it and also host Movement Strategy sessions for our community subject to approval from a grants officer.

Update on remaining funds

We used GHC 2,640.00 of the remaining funds for data and hardware support for some of the scholarship recipients who requested it. We still have GHC 2,225.49 left which we plan to use to expand the data scholarship to a lot more people who would request for it.

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

The scholarship opportunity afforded the majority of our members to attend Wikimania for the first time even though virtually. And all the people who received funds from us mentioned that they were excited about it.